Trade and Transport in the Turnpike Era 97 



of their marvellous bridges over the Chaos from the infernal 

 regions to our world. 



" The effects of this easy communication have almost daily 

 grown more and more visible. The several great cities, and 

 we might add, many poor country towns, seem to be univer- 

 sally inspired with the ambition of becoming the little Londons 

 of the part of the country in which they are situated." 



But if the easy communication rendered possible by turnpike 

 roads and flying coaches conferred on the country towns a 

 hope of becoming so many little Londons, the day was to 

 come when a still easier communication by means of railway 

 lines and express trains was to take provincial residents just 

 as readily to the great and real London, and so deprive not a 

 few provincial centres of much of that social life and dis- 

 tinction which the improved transport facilities had brought 

 them. 



In London itself, as may also be learned from Defoe, the 

 betterment of the roads around the metropolis led to the 

 citizens flocking out in greater numbers than ever to take 

 lodgings and country houses in " towns near London," which 

 many people having business in the City had not been able to 

 do before because of the trouble involved in riding to and fro 

 on the bad roads. We are told, further, of the consequent 

 increase in the rent of houses, and of the greater number of 

 dwellings being built, in places the roads to which had thus 

 been improved, as compared with other suburban districts 

 to which the turnpike system had not yet been extended. 



We have here the beginnings of that creation of a Greater 

 London which has since undergone such enormous develop- 

 ments, and has led to the almost complete disappearance of 

 the custom, once in vogue in the City of London, of a merchant 

 or tradesman living on the same premises as those in which 

 he carried on his business. 



Of the various circumstances that led to the eventual 

 decline and fall of the turnpike system, which, with all its 

 faults and short-comings, had at least helped to bring about 

 the improvements in trade, transport and social conditions 

 here described, I shall speak in Chapter xxiii. 



